The rise of new technologies and new “digital” ways to connect with customers has transformed the retail sector. Everything has changed from the way retailers interact with customers and how they handle their data streams to meet the rising demands and requirements of customers. To compete effectively in such changing times, retailers must reimagine how they connect and manage their customer data, improving the ease of doing business and delivering the promised value on time. But creating this level of connectivity is no easy feat.
It requires retail units to have a robust data integration system in place that enables them to implement data connections and integrate new customers without delay. They need to leverage a modern integration solution because legacy solutions only make the system fragile and complex. But before understanding the impact modern data integration solutions have on retail, let’s delve into factors that hold retailers back.
What is Holding Retailers Back?
The efforts of retailers to connect with customers and deliver what they’ve been promised are constantly hampered by data being stored across disparate systems. Because data streams stored in a particular department cannot be accessed by others, the problem of data silos increases. And as a result, companies fail to analyze the data streams and deliver value accordingly.
What’s more, it’s the responsibility of IT teams to implement data connections, which takes almost six to 12 weeks of calendar time. While IT writes custom codes and creates data mappings to onboard and integrate data, customers wait to connect with business users. Customers get frustrated as they don’t receive the promised value on time. It’s unlikely that such unhappy customers would invest in other products or services offered by the company, negatively impacting upselling and revenue growth.
How Can Modern Data Integration Solutions Change the Game?
To grow in the current digital environment, retailers need to use modern data integration solutions. These solutions enable non-technical business users to create data connections with customers in minutes instead of weeks or months. In other words, these solutions reduce the burden on IT and free them to focus on other high-priority business projects.
Modern data integration solutions enable retail units to onboard their customers by up to 80%. In fact, non-technical business users can point and click through easy screens to create onboarding connections. At the same time, IT teams are freed from creating custom codes and data mappings and focus on more high-value tasks.
Features, such as pre-built data connectors, shared templates, dashboards and intuitive screens, etc., enable the non-techies to implement data connections in minutes. Further, AI and machine learning empower users to streamline business transactions and ultimately deliver value to customers sooner. And when customers receive the value sooner, they are more likely to invest in other products or services, creating new revenue streams for the company.
Indeed, retail is transforming. And companies that rely on legacy integration solutions will need more time to connect, interact, and transact with their customers. A modern data integration solution is what they need. Not only can these solutions enable non-technical business users to connect with customers in minutes and deliver the promised value, but also improve the company’s ease of doing business and accelerate revenue growth.